' artificious

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Date: 10/06/2007
time: 0730 hours
Scenes of 'Singapore' passed me by as the bus drove through the empty highway of my blood-land. Sitting in that dusty and uncomfortable seat, I had an abominable thought of the 5 hour bus ride to Kuala Lumpur. Yes, time is fleeting, but in such circumstances, it never was. With my body filled with absolute energy, I couldn't help but stay awake and read some literature or check the speed of the bus through the use of my stop-watch. (The average speed of the bus was 108km/h)"A little too slow for comfort"
time: 1230 hours
Finally, the bus arrives at a rather deserted bus terminal with many 'money-thirsty' taxi drivers waiting to sell you a ride.
(People together with me in the trip: Mother, Mother's friend, Mother's friend's husband, Mother's friend's daughter)
We found a 'honest' taxi driver and got him to send us to our 5 star hotel which in my perspective, not even 4 stars. For just a 10 minutes ride, we were charged with RM15, quite very ridiculous indeed but oh well, tourists like us are meant to be 'killed'. After we checked in, we found a cosy place in the hotel for lunch, the food was average though but the environment was good.
time: 1420 hours
We took a 20 minutes walk to the famous twin tower a.k.a KLCC or the petronas tower which is also famous for luxurious shopping.

Not an ideal place for a men. Sometimes I just don't understand women, they love cheap things that have good quality, good looking and branded. With all these terms and conditions, I wonder if a luxurious shopping mall like KLCC would settle their standards. Indeed, after a 2 hour window shopping, the women bought absolutely nothing but filled their finger tips with branded smell(they touched every branded clothing that they saw). What do men do? They simply admire the posters and advertisements with sexy lingerie ladies as they trail behind the girls.
time: 1800 hours
Met up with a relative of mine from Ipoh, he brought us to a famous hawker centre for dinner. The alleys and walkways of Kuala Lumpur were fatid, they stank like rotten food mixed with a good dose of body waste. You can never find a sense of composure in Kuala Lumpur, you're always on the look-out for your wallet, always watching your back for unexpected robbery. Though the environment was awful, the food was amazing. Going out with my Aunt's husband was fun as every dinner, he would offer me a few glasses of red wine, that night, it was good food with good wine.

My 3 day trip
The night's goodness did not last very long, soon, 'disaster' struck.
At first...

Then...

Screwed...

At 2100 hours, rain started pouring down onto the hot earth. We thought that the rain would start to get lighter if we waited a little longer. That however, did not happen, the rain became larger and lasted forever. After 15 minutes, the ground surrounding the food stall were flooded, we ended up stuck there for an hour and a half waiting for the rain to stop. This thought of ours never did come true. The rain did calm down a little but the water never did subside, we had no choice but to run out to the main road to try and find a taxi. By then, we were all drenched even though we had umbrellas. As we flagged for taxis passing by, none wanted to stop for us, so we decided to call for a taxi. Luckily, the taxi arrived in 10 minutes. The real horror comes at this point when the taxi brought us back to the hotel. On the way, floods were everywhere, blocking the way to the hotel, so the driver had to take other small routes to get to the destination. Despite all the small roads and 'short cuts' taken, we still ended up in a pool of water. The taxi almost got stuck there but luckily with god's grace, it managed to get out of the flood. What an experience for me on the first day in Kuala Lumpur.
time: 2235 hours
We reached the hotel, all drenched and cold but we all had a thrilling ride through the flooded Kuala Lumpur city. This night, I witnessed at least 3 traffic accidents on the way to the hotel. Cars would all try to turn to another direction instead of heading to the flooded regions, thus creating havoc in a one way lane. Once we got back into our hotel rooms, we quickly took a hot bath and went to bed.

Date: 11/06/2007
time: 0700 hours
Got out of bed, bathed, brushed my teeth, changed, and went down to the gym with my mother. Considering it is a 5 star hotel, I expected high standard equipments with sexy gym instructors. Unfortunately, I had to deal with the opposite. Equipments were old, lousy and most of them were not functioning. Gym instructors? Well, none.
time: 0840 hours
Got out of the hideous gym to get a quick bath and changed into new clothes. Now, I am hungry. Went down to the hotel’s restaurant, I was rather pleased with the food and decorations. After the Taiwan trip, my complacency of food decreased tremendously.
time: 1030 hours
Walked to a train station, took a train to China Town for some pirated goods shopping. China Town sold all kinds of pirated goods that looked like exact replicas of the real ones. Prices can be bargained from S$30 per shirt to S$25 for 2 shirts. They also sold pirated DVDs and my favorite TV series but due to my lack of trust on these items, I did not bother to buy.
time: 1230 hours
Had lunch in another coffee shop which certainly wasn’t for the rich and famous but the food was lovely.
time: 1310 hours
My Aunt’s husband and daughter couldn’t take the strenuous shopping so they went back to the hotel first while I was stuck with two shopaholics. Well, it wasn’t as if I had a choice, I was the only one that remembered the location of the warehouses where they sold pirated products at extremely low prices.
time: 1600 hours
Finally the ordeal of shopping was over; we took a train back to the hotel. On the way back, we bought some fast-food from K.F.C and brought back to the hotel for a feast. The K.F.C in Malaysia is certainly much better in taste and quality than in Singapore. The chicken had this very fresh smell and juicy taste, it is also less oily than the Singapore one.
time: 1800 hours
Time for dinner.

My mother’s K.L friend came by to the hotel to fetch us to KLCC for dinner. We ate in a restaurant called “Madam Kwan’s”, the restaurant was classy, the service was superb and it was flooded with well dressed office workers. We ordered the restaurant’s top food, “Curry Fish Head”. When the food arrived, we were just shocked to see that the fish head was as big as a human one! Never once did I ever felt compelled to eat a fish, we were all just too stuffed to the maximum to even finish the fish. Dinner was too much for perfection.
time: 2200 hours
After dinner, I went to “Kinokuniya” to find two books by ‘Jeff Lindsay’. After an hour of searching by the librarian and me, the books finally appeared. To my surprise, it is another book under the category of Literature.
time: 2100 hours
Back in the hotel, watching a very good movie, “Ocean’s twelve”.
After that, I went to bed.

Date: 12/06/2007
time: 0800 hours
Having breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant with a whole load of Indians and Islamic members.
time: 1000 hours
Got into a shuttle bus and headed to the Times Square area. (Absolutely boring place)
time: 1430 hours
Had lunch in Times Square, the food in the food court was absolutely, average.
time: 1630 hours
Checked out of the hotel, only my mother and I left for Singapore that day as I had a field trip to Keppel Shipyard the next day. We took a taxi to the bus terminal to wait for the 5.30pm coach. This time, our coach is much better as it is an 18 seats coach. The seats were fitted with LCD screens which passengers can watch movies, the seats were equipped with buttons for seat adjustments, very cool. The downside of it is the earpiece that they provide, extremely lousy I must say, you can’t wear it for more than an hour as it will definitely start hurting your ears. Its cushion and design seem to heat your ears up while you wear it. The movies are in a HDD AV system which you can browse through the folders, they have English, Chinese and Thai movies. Most of the English movies are poor in quality so I decided to watch the Chinese ones. Chinese movies turned out to be 90% Cantonese. I had to strain my eyes to keep looking at subtitles. After awhile, I got tired of it, I guess I am just too used to big screen high definition films.
time: 2230 hours
Arrived back in Singapore’s bus terminal at Beach Road, I came down from the bus and took a deep breath, for the first time after 3 days, breathing deeply never felt any better.

My journey ends here.

artificious ' 11:30 pm